Monday, September 8, 2008

September 8th, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin's church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer."You'll be encouraged by the power of God's love and His desire to transform the lives of those impacted by homosexuality," according to the insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church, where Palin has prayed for about six years.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/06/palins-church-promotes-co_n_124536.html

A law blog points out why the police might want to re-think how they treat journalists: If you arrest student journalists and other journalists for doing their job, that will make them cover the police more critically in the future. If you arrest a photographer for "rioting" when he is in fact taking a photograph of the riot rather than participating in it, if you arrest a reporter for "rioting" when he is in fact standing in front of a camera reporting on the riot rather than participating in it, this will make that photographer or reporter less inclined in the future to believe the police when the police make accusations. After all, he now has personal experience with the police making a false accusation against him. So now he personally knows that police officers can and do lie. That has to color his future reporting. There is an old saying, "never argue with someone who buys paper by the truckload and ink by the barrel". Even in today's Internet-connected world that is still a wise saying.

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Could Maureen Dowd please just write ONE freaking column that doesn't mention Bill and Hillary?http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/opinion/07dowd.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

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Halliburton exec pleads guilty to bribery

Well, the unthinkable has finally happened. VP Cheney's ex(hah!)-company is on the block. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Jack Stanley has pleaded guilty to charges of bribery after a 5-year investigation. (No link because it's the WSJ and subscription only; the quotes come from an actual newspaper.)In a wide-ranging foreign corruption investigation, fired former Halliburton Co executive Albert J "Jack" Stanley pleaded guilty to orchestrating more than $180 million in bribes to senior Nigerian officials. The bribes were used to win a contract to build a liquified-natural-gas plant in Nigeria.

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Mr Stanley's agreement to cooperate with Federal investigators could breathe new life into the five-year probe, and additional charges of executives are possible. Various current and former executives of the business unit KBR, once owned by alliburton but now independent, have been subpoenaed as have other companies involved in the construction.And one of them, could be Li'l Dick hisself. The bribery happened in '95 when Dickie-Bird was CEO. He will claim ignorance of the deal, of course, but we're talking about a micro-manager of epic proportions. The chance that something that momentous happened on his watch without his not just knowing about it but approving it is ludicrous to the point of absurdity. Whether anybody involved will have the guts to admit it was his call is a totally different matter. Especially since Dickie seems to have been Stanley's mentor. Three years later, Cheney made Stanley the head of KBR.

Nancy Pelosi has made it impossible to imagine Bush or Cheney being hauled away to jail for their crimes against this country (like lying in order to start a war over oil from which Cheney's old company and Bush's oil buddies made $$$Billions$$$), but it may be that at least Cheney will see the inside of a jail cell for his crimes against other businesses.

Alright, it's not likely. But we can always dream, can't we?

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Todd Palin's former business partner - Scott Richter, who the National Enquirer has reported as having an affair with Sarah Palin — has filed an emergency motion to seal the court records from his divorce. The motion was denied.

There's also a rumor that in the mid 90's, Sarah had a fling with another one of Todd's business partners, Brad Hanson.

How bizarre (and magically delicious) if Palin could get away with lying her ass off on national television about her record and Obama’s positions, and then succeed in ducking any serious questions from the press, only to get tripped up by some trivial infidelity.

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All the talk going around is that the McCain campaign didn't vet Palin because they're incompetent and full of fail. I bought into it for a minute too, after all, what other excuse could there be? You know, I've been at this for years now, and sometimes the sheer venality of it still takes my breath away. They didn't vet Palin not because they couldn't get it together to do so, but because they knew it wouldn't matter anyway.

Think about it. She's going around telling a bunch of lies about a jet and Ebay and earmarks and a bridge. Doesn't matter, just attack "the liberal media" and they'll shut right up, or even if they don't, people will be inclined to believe you and not the front pages.

She's being investigated for illegally interfering in the operations of law enforcement? Doesn't matter, just get some minion on the phone to put out a nasty press release decrying the politics of one government official investigating another, with no sense of irony at all, because if you shock them into breathlessness, it's harder to formulate a response. All their problems are going to go away now, because this is how they get them to go away. It's how they have always played the game.

Our party should have known this. For the last eight years at least all they've ever done is what they accuse us of doing: rampant spending, wild politically motivated illegal acts, unprovoked wars of nation-building gone horribly wrong, demeaning the troops, desecrating the flag, being ignorant about the country they purport to love (the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance? Come on). The only things they're interested in accusing us of are the things they do themselves, and I should know better by now. So should the people who, you know, have actual positions in the party and don't just write about stuff that pisses them off to a bunch of friends.

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Sarah Palin keeps health care costs under control

Faced with the prospect of so many Alaska Guardsmen and soldiers returning home after suffering traumatic brain injuries (TBI), Gov. Sarah Palin reached deep into Alaska's coffers to allocate one hundred dollars to teach health care professionals how to recognize TBI cases.

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Rebecca Nelson thought that she was helping the environment when she captured rainwater in a barrel and use it on her garden. Car dealer Mark Miller thought he was “greening” his facility with a cistern to use to wash vehicles. They were both violating the law in Utah where it is against the law to capture rain water.http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4001252

Should I cover my lawn when it rains?

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Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the revelation in Bob Woodward's new book that the Bush administration has been spying on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraqi spokesman Ali Dabbagh warned of future bad relations between Iraq and the CIA if the allegations proved true. Even Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Osman denounced the spying as a breach of friendship.Future bad relations? They're not already furious that the CIA helped Bush fabricate the intelligence to attack their country?

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From ABC's Political Punch:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., just told Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace that McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin won't subject herself to any tough questions from reporters "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."

Didn't people used to have to earn respect?

I'm just imagining what the reaction would be if Hillary Clinton had ever said that.

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Let's just say the Republicans got their way; abortion becomes illegal, and every pregnant woman has to give birth. No more worries about protecting the "babies;" they will all be born.

After the cheering settled down, how do you think these same people would react if, along with their precious "Human Life Constitutional amendment," a second amendment was passed, limiting the number of children any family may have by law to, oh, say, two. No more quivers full of arrows.

Do you think they would suddenly have an opinion on government controlling a woman's right to choose? Would these same heroic, baby-saving lawmakers suddenly become "activist judges," legislating from the bench?

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If only John McCain had learned about the Internet before he chose Sarah Palin — so much “cyber vetting” could’ve happened. Instead, a bunch of hungover libtard bloggers are using their favorite friend (the Internet) to dig up all kinds of half-ass semi-comical crimes committed by that beloved Alaskan anger-bear, Sarah Palin.

From the official Alaska state courts’ website, we have learned that Sarah is basically getting arrested all the time for dumb redneck bullshit, exactly like you’d expect:In June of 1993, Sarah was charged with C/F W/O PHOTO ID — a charge that was later, suspiciously, dismissed. “C/F” stands for “Caribou something.”Just two days later, charges were filed against Sarah Palin for CRIM NEG FAIL REG NT, which actually translates to “criminal negligence fail register NT.” We don’t know what “NT” stands for — “Nutcase”? “Walnuts”? It probably involved destroying the environment.And just a few years ago, in November 2004 when she was supposedly a responsible member of society with four kids, she was cited for the unforgivable snowbilly crime of TINTED WINDOWS, which is the inexplicable thing all rednecks do their vehicles, the illegal window tint film shit you buy down at the dubious car-stereo/rims shop.

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Pastor Swank is back with an unintelligable title, and a startling scoop:Why did B. Hussein Obama dodge the topic of extremist Muslim presence? Because he is a mask Muslim.###

Marc Perkel - letter to the editor:

John McCain is running against the Republican establishment? The Republican establishment that he now admits failed the American people. John McMcain is going to take America back from people like John McCain? And that’s change we can believe in? I wonder if the Republicans running for reelection in the House and Senate are going to pick up on McCain’s theme and run against the Republican party too?

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Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, warned yesterday the US should not withdraw too quickly from Iraq and leave the country "in chaos".

"The question is, is Iraq today ready with a national army, a national police force, a national judiciary, a national educational system," Moussa said.

"If they are ready, the troops have to leave. If they are not ready and the Americans are there anyway and the mistake has been committed, I am not of the view that we just call on the Americans to leave ... It would be another mistake to create chaos in the country and then leave it in chaos."http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=228345&Sn=WORL&IssueID=31171

For a long time, I agreed with Mr. Moussa, but years have gone by, and the Iraqis are not stepping up to the plate. Perhaps the Arab League could cough up $10.3 billion a month for us to stay.